Taylor prosecutor weighs in again

The prosecutor who ensured Greg Taylor went to prison for murder in 1993 grilled Taylor on Tuesday afternoon.

Wake County Assistant District Attorney Tom Ford raised his voice as he asked Taylor: "Do you recall telling your attorney that your aggressive nature and your temper would prevent you from withstanding lashing out at me?"

Taylor has been in prison since 1993 for the murder of Jacquetta Thomas, a prostitute who was beaten to death in an industrial stretch of Southeast Raleigh.

Taylor, 47, is facing a trio of judges to ask that they heed his claim of innocence and set him free. Taylor, a Cary man, was convicted in 1993 of murdering Thomas. Taylor had gotten his truck stuck in the mud near where the body was found.

"You knew that story about your being back there four-wheeling wasn't going to work," Ford said, stabbing his finger against a notepad.

Taylor answered: "I didn't see any reaon why he would be concerned about me."

This morning, Taylor's voice cracked when he and Joseph Cheshire, his attorney, read the transcript of the police interview the day police arrested him.

Cheshire read the part of Raleigh police detective Johnny Howard, saying: "Do you know what kind of sentence life carries? What will your daughter say?'

Taylor cried as he read his answer: "I did not do it. I did not do it."

His daughter, Kristen Puryear, sat not 20 feet away and wept as her father broke down.

Taylor told the judges that he thought he saw a body as he left the area that night but thought it best to not call police because he was high on drugs. "Something about [the body] did not seem natural," Taylor said. "We figured it was somebody that had OD'ed back there."

This morning, Taylor wore a suit and tie, and clunky plastic glasses that swallow his thin face. He talked of the drug addiction that drove him into unfamiliar streets in Southeast Raleigh in 1991 with Johnny Beck, a man who came along to buy him drugs.

Cheshire told the judges that there was no way Taylor could have committed Thomas' murder. He resisted dozens of opportunities to blame the murder on Beck and to take a plea deal.

"Any guilty person when given the chance to save themselves will time and again take that opportunity," Cheshire said. "Any guilty person would agree to help the state to get out of prison. There is only one thing to keep someone from doing that, innocence and the desire not to lie about another innocent [person.]"

Taylor has sworn his innocence from the beginning. For nearly 17 years, he has appealed the jury's decision but failed at every turn. Courts in North Carolina cannot deal with claims of innocence after a jury conviction.

Taylor got a break in September, when the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission heard his case. The commission, made up of police, judges, lawyers and victim's advocates, voted unanimously that there was enough merit to Taylor's claim to warrant further review.

The commission was set up in 2006 and is the first of its kind in the United States. Taylor's is only the second case to make it to a panel of judges.

Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby, whose office prosecuted Taylor in 1991, is expected to contest Taylor's exoneration. Willoughby and the original prosecutor, Ford, have argued that there's no new evidence to suggest that Taylor is innocent.e Inquiry Commission heard his case. The commission, made up of police, judges, lawyers and victim's advocates, voted unanimously that there was enough merit to Taylor's claim to warrant further review.

The commission was set up in 2006 and is the first of its kind in the United States. Taylor's is only the second case to make it to a panel of judges.

Ford sat eight feet from Taylor on Tuesday morning but rarely looked at Taylor as he testified. He scribbled on a legal pad and occasionally slid it over to his boss.

A jury convicted Taylor in 1993 after hearing testimony from a fellow prostitute and a jailhouse snitch. Both of their statements have varied over the years, and both witnesses have had their credibility attacked.

An SBI agent also incorrectly testified that investigators found blood on Taylor's truck; they did not. Also, a police dog handler told jurors that the dog indicated the victim had been in Taylor's truck; the dog wasn't trained to track the scents of the dead. Cheshire said that all of that evidence was botched, and without it, Taylor would have been, and should be, walking free.